To kick off the Festival on April 18th 09, Color magazine and crew of skaters

rolled in from the city while Seb Templer, the Whistler Skateboard Association

and the Festival organizers set up a street style course in the Whistler

conference center underground parking lot. Inspired by the defunct Creekside

underground the setup included a run down Volvo station wagon along with

some Qpʼs and a bunch of boxes and many pads.

11 or so clock rolled around and a slew of skaters poured out of the Coors bus to

charge the course. As the event started to heat up a huge crowd of onlookers

came to partake in the action. After a few hours of street course skating a best

trick session went down on the Ol Volvo.

Chris Connely was launching huge over the length of the wagon straight onto the

hood. Nate Lacoste was lipsliding the edge of a box on the wagon and

Klinkhamer was working his token Backside 3ʼs off the blast ramp to flat. After

trashing the Volvo everyone rolled over to the Push.ca wallride for some cash

giveaways. The Volvo was literally trashed, we didnʼt manage to flip it but we got

it rocking over 90 degrees.

Chris Connely, P-nut, Dustin Montie and a whole bunch of other guys went at it

collecting $20ʼs for good tricks on the wall ride transfer. Some good bails, some

hammers and a whole bunch cheers and it was time for the finals.

Chris Connely, Paul Machnau, Brett Stobbard, Brad Sheppard, John Hanlon and

some one else made it to the finals, after a few course adjustments and a little

car cleanup (removal of some doors, some broken glass and car parts cleanup)

the finals went down. Hanlon and Machnnau warmed up on the Volvo with Bs

tailslides and noseblunts followed by kickflip Bs taslides and shuvit nosegrinds.

Around 6pm or so the event started to calm down and everyone strolled around

the village and met back up in the conference center (this time above ground) to

check out the Skate of The Art Exhibit. A few brews later, around 10 or so the

winners were announced. I was trying to figure out who won (for this post), but

really, who cares, the event went off. With no skate event happening as a part of

the festival last year it was nice to see a legit list of skaters (and nice to resurrect

some obstacles from the old underground) and a good comradery of people out

having a good time watching some gnarly skating.